The story of ‘Springfield’ begins with a lease which the half-yearly Audit Meeting of Dulwich College (then the owners of the freehold of the whole Dulwich estate) ordered on 4th September 1802 to be granted to one Nathaniel Bogle French, of “six fields near Ireland Green” totalling 21 acres, lately in the occupation of the recently deceased Sarah Miller, to include a covenant by French to spend at least £1,500 on building a new house, using (if required) the materials from Mr MacMasters’ old house.  Sarah Miller had been the widow of Joseph Miller (died pre-1788), who had built the original Half Moon Public House (on the site of the present Half Moon Hotel) in 1760, and has leased the house that had stood on its site, with 30 acres to the south and south-east of it, as far back as 1748, as well as later on being simultaneously the lessee of the Bell Inn in the centre of the village.  John MacMasters or McMasters had occupied the house on the present King’s College premises further east along Half Moon Lane (Ireland Green being a strip of common through which the old Half Moon Lane ran), and N. B. French had acquired his lease, as well as of most of the other properties fronting the south side of Half Moon Lane, by 1800, allowing for wholesale redevelopment of the area and the building of substantial new mansion houses, each with a fair number of acres attached.  ‘Springfield’ was by all accounts the most substantial of these, the others being Surrey Lodge (which he also built, and occupied), alias Ellison Lodge, alias Dulwich Place, and, nearer ‘Springfield’, Elm Lodge and Elm Cottages. The first occupant of ‘Springfield’ seems to have been Richard Shawe, occupying temporarily as French’s tenant, while his own mansion ‘Cassina House’ (or ‘Cassino’), at the junction of Herne Hill and Red Post Hill, awaited completion.

(The above, written by me, formed the second paragraph of a 1998 article, the remainder of which was written by Ian C. Bristow.]